Page 4 of The Rebel and the Rose (The City of Fantome #2)

Nadia stared out of the window towards the trees.

Her brown eyes took on a familiar vacant look, and Ransom knew that she was thinking of Lark.

She was always thinking of Lark, her best friend, her lover.

They had had a plan to run away together.

She’d confessed it, three whiskeys deep, to Ransom over Saintsmas.

They were going to lose themselves in a place like Aberville, marry and build a farm.

Build a life far from the catacombs and leave the business of killing behind them.

Now Lark was dead.

And so was the plan.

Ransom came to her side.

‘We should have buried him back home,’ she murmured. ‘By the trees on his mother’s farm. He loved it there. He would have wanted that.’

Ransom’s stomach twisted. ‘We can visit him in Old Haven.’

Not that he ever did. He couldn’t bring himself to.

‘And talk to the frozen grass.’ She gave a mirthless snort. ‘Corpses don’t talk back.’

‘That’s my favourite thing about them,’ said Caruso.

Ransom tossed him a warning look. ‘Not helpful.’

‘Neither is this depressing heart-to-heart.’ Caruso stretched, passing a hand over his shaved head.

He had had to cut off his wild dark hair the night the monsters ripped his skull open down in the catacombs.

As the sun rose over the weeping city of Fantome, Caruso had stood, bloodless and half dead, in front of the mirror and sewed the wound shut.

Badly. Now he had a gruesome scar above his left ear to show for it.

‘And you wonder why you sleep alone, Caruso.’ Nadia’s voice hardened as she stepped away from the window. ‘We should search the forest.’

‘Why?’ Caruso cocked his head. ‘Do you think the old bat went out there to lay eggs?’

She glared at him. ‘Maybe a monster took her.’

‘The monsters are dead,’ said Ransom.

‘How do you know they’re all gone?’ She turned her pointed glare on him. ‘ We didn’t make them. And we sure as hell didn’t kill them.’

‘You hardly think they’ve been playing hide-and-seek in that creepy forest this entire time?’ said Caruso. ‘You’re supposed to be the smart one, Nadia.’

‘And you were supposed to stay home today.’ She punched him in the arm. ‘I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas.’

‘I’m not the ideas guy. I’m the murder guy.’

‘We’re all the murder guy,’ she reminded him.

‘Only until the last of our Shade runs dry. Then I’ll just use my hands.’ Caruso cracked his knuckles, the olive skin there covered in shadow-marks, just like the rest of him. ‘The question is, what will you do, princess?’

‘I’ll jam my stiletto heel through your left eye.’

He arched a dark brow. ‘You know it turns me on when you talk like that.’

‘You are insufferable,’ she huffed.

Ransom left them to their bickering, glad to hear the bite returning to Nadia’s voice.

He preferred it over the grief that so often lingered there.

The blame . Slipping out of the back door, he did his own patrol of the garden.

It was eerily quiet outside, the forest making a stark outline against the white sky.

The back of his neck began to prickle as he scanned the trees. Grabbing a vial from his pocket, he took the barest sip of Shade. Just enough to light up the shadows and to keep his own close in case he needed them.

He had come too far, survived too much, to die to a flying pitchfork.

The forest winked to light. It was still. He scrubbed his hands through his hair, ashamed of his own paranoia.

Stalking onwards, he headed towards the slow-swaying trees, where the frozen lake reflected the pallid sky. The first time Ransom had come here over six years ago, as part of a negotiation trip with Dufort, there were swans in this lake.

Two of them.

He had stood in this very same spot, thinking of his mother and his sister, Anouk, as he watched them gliding back and forth on the water.

Now the lake was empty, and Ransom was thinking of someone else.

Closing his eyes, he could almost scent her on the wind – a whisper of lemon blossoms and, just beneath it, the barest hint of gunpowder.

He could almost feel the ghost of her standing beside him, looking into the same lake. Humming. Plotting.

He snapped his eyes open, finding his own reflection staring back him.

Seraphine .

What are you up to?

Something flickered at the edge of his vision. A flower glowing on the ice. Frowning, he trudged round the edge of the lake to reach it.

It was a golden rose. Artificial and perfect and perched on the ice as though someone had left it there just for him.

Steadying himself with a whip of shadow, he reached over the sheen of ice to pluck it.

His fingers tingled, the familiar brush of magic drawing a sharp inhale.

It shot through him like a ray of sunlight, licking the Shade from his bones and shredding the shadows around him.

The rose crumbled. The stem first and then the head, falling away in petals of gold and amber, until, for the briefest moment, it looked like a flame kissing the palm of his hand.

Shining flecks of ash sifted through his fingers, and then they were gone, too.

Struck still at the edge of the lake, he stared down at his own reflection. There was a wildness in his eyes now, a wildness beating in his chest.

Sera hadn’t just been here; she had left a calling card for him.

An invitation to a new game.

His smile curled, slow and lethal.

Saint Oriel was not yet done with them.